“It began as a war of choice: A different Israeli policy in the last few months might have prevented it. It evolved into a pointless war. It’s already pretty obvious that it will not result in any long-term achievements. It could still deteriorate into a disaster, and in the end will turn out to have been a war of deception – Israel lied itself to ruination. The first deceit was that there was no alternative. True, when the rocket barrages landed on Israel, that was the case. But what about the steps that led up to them? They were steps to which there were other options. It isn’t difficult to imagine what would have happened had Israel not halted the peace talks; had not launched an all-out war on Hamas in the West Bank, in the wake of the murder of the three Israeli teenagers; had not held up the transfer of funds earmarked for the payment of government salaries in the Gaza Strip; had not opposed the Palestinian unity government; and had eased up on its blockade of the Gaza Strip.

The Qassam rockets were a response to Israel’s choices. Afterward the goals snowballed, as they always do in wars – from stopping the rockets, to finding and destroying the tunnels, and on to the demilitarization of Gaza. They might well continue to snowball, to who knows where. “Quiet will be met with quiet.” Remember that? On Friday, Israel rejected U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s cease-fire proposal. The second deceit is that the occupation of the Gaza Strip has ended. Imagine a besieged enclave, whose inhabitants are imprisoned, much of whose affairs are controlled by another state – from maintaining a population registry to running the economy, including prohibiting exports and restricting fishing, and which flies in its skies and occasionally invades its territory. Is that not occupation?

The third deceit is the claim that the Israel Defense Forces “does everything in its power” to avoid killing civilians. We’ve already passed the first thousand deaths, a frightening number of them children and the majority of them civilians; with neighborhoods that have been flattened and 150,000 displaced persons with nowhere safe to run. All that makes the claim nothing more than a bitter joke. The claim that the world supports the war and recognizes its justness is also an Israeli deception. While it’s true that Western politicians reiterate that Israel has the right to defend itself, the bodies that are piling up and the desperate refugees are upsetting the world and generating hatred toward Israel. In the end, even the statesmen who support Israel will turn against it…..continued

…..And the biggest joke of all, the mother of all deceptions: the belief in the rightness of its ways. The “just war” slogan is repeated so frequently, ad nauseam, that one begins to suspect that even the ones who scream it the loudest have their doubts, otherwise they wouldn’t scream so loudly and wouldn’t fight so easily with the few who try to express a different opinion. After all, how can a preventable war be justified? And how can one wrap oneself in its rightness in the presence of the horror-show images from Gaza? Perhaps the ground is burning under the feet of the members of this war-justifiers’ chorus as well. Perhaps they also realize that when the battles end, the real picture will become clear. That’s how it always is in wars of deception, and that’s how the war of 2014 will turn out, too.”

Meet the Press’ David Gregory showed United Nations Relief & Works Agency spokesperson Chris Gunness video Sunday morning that purported to show rockets being fired from a UN school — which would appear to back up Israel’s claim that Hamas was using the schools to mask its weapons — and asked if it proved Hamas was getting the end run around the U.N. There were a few problems, though — the film had only just been posted to YouTube by the Israeli government, it was unverified, and Gunness couldn’t even see it. “The Israelis say — and I realize that you cannot see this video, our audience can, and I’m going to describe it to you — that [this video] purports to show rockets being fired from a UN school,” Gregory said. “Is this accurate? Could this be happening without the U.N.’s knowledge that only bolster the Prime Minister’s point that Hamas is using civilians, using United Nations even in a kind of propaganda war?”

Gunness wasn’t having it. “To be fair to me, to bring me on a live program and expect me to comment live on air on pictures I haven’t actually seen, I think anyone looking at this program would agree that’s really unfair,” he said. Sure enough, by the end of the show the U.N. had weighed in and said the video did not show rockets firing from a U.N. school. Gregory issued a correction.

“An end note in a discussion about Gaza we asked a spokesman about this video which Israel claims showed rockets being fired by Hamas from a U.N. school in Gaza,” Gregory said. “This is shot by the Israeli government, and that’s their claim. The U.N. has reviewed it, tells us they have confirmed, in their view, the video does not show rockets being fired from U.N. administrative school in Gaza. So this is a back and forth we are not able to settle at this point.” That’s one way to put it.”

My pleasure, Vicki……I assumed it might be pay wall issue for some…..one thing I do is clear my browsing history every other day (or try opening in a different browser) and typically you will never hit a limit for most sites.

Ha’eretz has never upheld its policy, which had been 12 stories a month before. They are right if they are thinking that many people will want to hear their sane voice now in such a troubled time. Even if we have to pay for it.

No fair that ‘experts’ like you and LPlains know how to subvert pay walls and such!

psst, does clearing cache involve more than one click of a key? If yes, pass it on…..again. (Someone here told me how AGES ago but that time when I tried it I lost stuff I didn’t want to lose, so I lost the instructions. I like to think I may be a wee bit more savvy now.)

Chips Chica, I do NOT <3 you, you meanie!!!! (Where's the hate symbol, anyways?)

{I cracked up, very loudly, when I read that, so offspring who was passing by rushed in to see what was soooo funny. Need I say that he thought it was hilarious, and he has a VERY loud laugh! smh That's one of my parenting failure – he never did learn that he is always supposed to side with his parent (ask GGail)! }

Thanks ever so much, Lib_L. I’ve found ‘history’ – not that it was lost ;) – but have decided to wait until CC gets into her bunker (ie. I’ll do it tomorrow out of fear of wrecking something tonight before I catch up).

Satellite images released Sunday show what the U.S. government says is evidence that Russian forces are firing rockets and heavy artillery into Ukraine in support of pro-Russian rebels. The four black and white images, which were taken between July 21 and July 26, were released by the State Department and include captions from the Director of National Intelligence. They support the U.S. government’s recent claim that Russia appeared to be moving heavy artillery systems toward Ukraine. Russian officials have denied involvement in the conflict.

On another subject: AWFUL storms all around us and headed my wat in 20-30 minutes. One of the times I am really scared and wish husband was here. He is at an Inn in VT and they are having BAD storms as well! Sure thankful he is there and not in a shelter on the Trail.

My grandparents became Brooklyn Dodgers fans after Branch Rickey brought on Jackie Robinson….but prior to that they were big time fans of the Negro Leagues….

my grandfather would show me where he and my grandmother would go to see them play….it was such an upscale affair….women in dresses and heels…men in suits and hats………but they would all bring picnic food….smiling….there is a placard marking the site…

the Philadelphia Team was know as the Philadelphia Stars…..

The Philadelphia Stars represented the City of Brotherly Love in the Negro National League for 15 seasons beginning in 1934. The team’s only championship season came in their first year in the league.

The Stars was the second club organized and promoted to big league stature by owner Ed Bolden. Prior to the formation of the Stars in 1933 Bolden had owned the Hilldale Club, a team which had captured three Eastern Colored League championships and a Negro World Series crown in the early 1920s.

The 1935 championship club featured Negro League legends Slim Jones, Jud Wilson, Dick Seay and Biz Mackey in its lineup. Duration:
1933-1950

when i was growing up my grandfather would talk so much about those days….I do not remember everything….but I just love hearing him talk about it…I grew to love baseball from those talks…and now that he is gone….going to a game or watching a game on TV…takes me back to him….smilin

Obama gets tough with Netanyahu, for Gaza and/or for Kerry
Remember: nothing riles the White House more than the appearance that Israel is supplying ammo to Obama’s political enemies, as it did on Sunday.

Barack Obama may have stopped short of reading the riot act to Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday, but the White House version of the two leaders’ phone conversation left no room for doubt: The U.S. President was ratcheting up the rhetoric and the pressure on Israel to end the fighting in Gaza, and to end it now.

Both the tone and the content of the official readout of the phone call conveyed a sense of assertiveness and urgency that was significantly blunter than the language used by Obama since the start of the Gaza campaign. The immediate assumption was that the White House was venting its anger at the full frontal assault on Secretary of State John Kerry that was launched after the Israeli cabinet’s rejection of his cease-fire proposals on Friday and reached fever pitch in Sunday’s Israeli media reports. A second explanation, alternative or supplementary, was that Obama was expressing his own sense of anguish and distress with the scenes of death and destruction in Gaza that were exposed for the world to see during Friday’s 12-hour cease-fire.

“The specific words chosen by the White House aides in formulating the official readout were all taken from the dictionary of diplomatic jargon, but they were unequivocal nonetheless. “Building on Secretary Kerry’s efforts” (but turbocharging them) “the President made clear” (this was not a request) “the strategic imperative” (this is more important than anything else for me now, so it should be for you too) “of instituting an immediate, unconditional (no ifs, buts or maybes) humanitarian ceasefire that ends hostilities now (and not later) and leads to a permanent cessation of hostilities based on the November 2012 ceasefire agreement.””

Wow. Son was driving home via Lexington, KY, earlier today and got caught up in a tornadic-like wind and hail storm, leaving ice all over the Interstate. Luckily, he wasn’t injured and they got back safely.

“Most societies, especially those in conflict, are guilty of one-sided narratives. But it is troubling that the international media dutifully repeats them. A recent article in The Economist about the escalation begins with the discovery of the bodies of the three kidnapped Israeli youths, never once mentioning the massive Israeli operation against Hamas in the West Bank that preceded the finding, nor the fact that the protracted search for the boys seems to have been simply a pretext for a political operation against Hamas because the prime minister knew the youths were dead almost from the start, nor that Israel has produced no evidence that Hamas was directly responsible for their despicable kidnapping and murder at all. “The escalation has demolished an uneasy peace,” the article announces in a wildly inaccurate description. Go ask the Palestinians of Gaza or the West Bank about that uneasy peace, or the Israelis of Sderot.

With these representations so widespread, it’s understandable that many blame only Hamas. Lulled into the habit of short-term, one-sided readings of the situation, even well-meaning Israelis and Diaspora Jews naturally advocate short-term, one-sided solutions: Bomb and crush them militarily now; never mind what might happen in a few weeks or years.”

Israel's Conflict Has a Past — and a Future; Before Gaza War, There Were Roads Not Taken | http://t.co/gz6OR793Fg

“More recently, what if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had not seen red when Fatah reached a reconciliation agreement with Hamas to create a technocratic government as a prelude to elections? His instant determination to crush Hamas as punishment is not unlike George W. Bush vowing to smash Saddam Hussein for 9/11, with its lamentable consequences. The paradigm is still one of force and emotional gratification today, sacrificing people’s lives on either side now and in the wars of tomorrow.”

Now, I’m not blaming you for the bunhaha, but reminds me somewhat of my “skills” centered around serving food to others. A hundred years ago, when I gave an after party following my son’s First Holy Communion, friends kept offering to bring things for the buffet table. Lots of friends. The mother of one of my friends noticed how just about everything being served walked in the door with the kind person who brought it, noticed how I pretty much had just gotten the bakery items myself from the bakery, and her mother said to my friend, “That Jackie’s as sly as a fox.”

Well, that’s a very positive spin on the scandal, DF. The thing is, the buns I bought were meant to have tasty seedy things in them, but only on the top ones – so, we just had two soggy bottoms with no seeds at all. Spin that, Missus.